Flame duo performs well through adversity
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Kara Muller and Carly Henderson represented College of Saint Mary well on Friday at the 46th-annual NAIA Women's Cross Country National Championship.
Muller placed 166th over the 6,000-meter (3.73 mile) course at Apalachee Regional Park, finishing in a time of 23 minutes, 29.1 seconds, while Henderson ended 221st in 24:07.3. It was the second straight year that the duo competed in the national meet.
CSM Coach Derek Fey said he was pleased with the effort of his sophomores.
"It was a great experience to be able to compete at another national meet for those two,'' he said. "Kara ran a better race than last year, and I was extremely impressed that Carly finished as strong as she did. Several times during the race she threw up and I wasn't sure she was going to finish."
In the team race, seventh-rated Dordt University of the Great Plains Athletic Conference led at the midway point and trailed by just two points with 1,000 meters to go. The Defenders finished third with 136 points and were led by freshman Addison Liston in 12th place (21:39.2).
Taylor (Ind.) University won with 90 points and Milligan (Tenn.) University was second with 109. Morningside University of the GPAC placed 25th of the 36 teams with 592 points.
"It was good to see so many GPAC teams perform really well,'' Fey said. "I'm hoping that will lead to positive changes in the future for how we select our teams for the national meet. Our team was deserving of being here over several others that ran."
Muller moved up 75 spots from last year's race. In this year's race, Henderson moved up 40 positions over the final 2,000 meters.
A variety of terrible travel snafus outside of their control made things extremely difficult on the pair, and made their performances even more impressive, Fey said.
"The travel arrangement the entire trip became an absolute fiasco, but I'm glad that they were so flexible,'' he said. "They have a really strong mindset and for many runners it would've had a real negative impact on them. They were ready to run."